Motel Girl presale · Book Description Passion Maps is a lyrical cartography of historical and...
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Passion Maps Poetry by Adrianne Kalfopoulou ISBN: 978-1-59709-158-9 Binding: Tradepaper Size: 6 x 9; Pages: 104 Pub Date: November, 2009 Price: US $17.95 Passion Maps POETRY BY Adrianne Kalfopoulou Passion Maps is a lyrical cartography of historical and biographical experiences, of the poet’s lived and imagined mappings. The poems in this collection chart a world itinerary of stopping places, or “stassis” – a transliterated Greek word for a stop or a pause – that journey the reader from locations of childhood memory to pauses of lost love, and lost life, through landscapes as disparate as Vietnam, Greece, New Jersey and the Balkans. As poet and critic Joseph Powell described Kalfopoulou’s first collection, Wild Greens, “the best of these poems ‘make beauty ache,’ a phrase used by Frost to describe Yeats’ poetry”; of this new collection Powell notes a range of “different types of utterance,” of poems “ambitious and experimental” in a volume that is “tough, tender and honest throughout.” As Passion Maps suggests, these are poems of experiences that have mapped, as much as experiences that have become maps; there are the inevitable first cartographies of family: a father “stoic/ in brutal combat,” a mother who “would have preferred to sing her words” that expand into the broader mappings of “bygone lives,/” and “the lyric ruin of cities,” an America of “New World opportunity” and an old world of “whole towns/now erased by the grass.” In Jon Tribble’s Crab Orchard Review of Wild Greens he describes the “the bitter and the sweet” in the poems that “test our palates” and “remind us that the bread and meat and fruits and greens of life come with many flavors and at a cost that is as dear as it is worthwhile.” The same could be said of Kalfopoulou’s second collection though here we have the voice of a poet who has broadened her style to include more of the world. Adrianne Kalfopoulou’s rich second collection maps “an inner country” where history is intimate knowledge. Whether set in Greece, America, Turkey or Vietnam, these poems never lose sight of “the storm / beyond language” that is a living struggle, nor do they forget what it is to “swallow joy like champagne.” Poetic range for this poet is not just formal, but also emotional, from intense lyrics like “The Street of the Aphrodite Hotel” to narratives in “Brides” and “Balkan Voices.” The book teems with characters, and in a poem like “Neos Kosmos” whole currents of modern history flow through the filter of one Athenian neighborhood. Kalfopoulou writes as mother, daughter, lover and intellectual—international in her experience, fully-engaged, observant and, yes, passionate. —David Mason It is a difficult thing to write simply and eloquently with quiet and intense passion in ways that are unflinchingly personal but also fold the reader into the depths of history and myth. This is partly what Adrianne Kalfopoulou’s poems do for me. They are also celebrations reminding me how words can perform acts of affirmation and joy no matter what griefs or complex experiences they contain. These poems attain the beauty of ritual. —T. Alan Broughton Red Hen Press is a small nonprofit literary press founded in 1994. Please support small independent presses who keep cutting edge literature alive. Red Hen Press • P.O. Box 3537 • Granada Hills, CA 91394 • www.redhen.org
Transcript of Motel Girl presale · Book Description Passion Maps is a lyrical cartography of historical and...
Passion MapsPoetry byAdrianne KalfopoulouISBN: 978-1-59709-158-9Binding: TradepaperSize: 6 x 9; Pages: 104Pub Date: November, 2009Price: US $17.95
Passion MapsPOETRY BY
Adrianne KalfopoulouPassion Maps is a lyrical cartography of historical and biographical experiences, of thepoet’s lived and imagined mappings. The poems in this collection chart a world itineraryof stopping places, or “stassis” – a transliterated Greek word for a stop or a pause –that journey the reader from locations of childhood memory to pauses of lost love,and lost life, through landscapes as disparate as Vietnam, Greece, New Jersey andthe Balkans. As poet and critic Joseph Powell described Kalfopoulou’s first collection,Wild Greens, “the best of these poems ‘make beauty ache,’ a phrase used by Frost todescribe Yeats’ poetry”; of this new collection Powell notes a range of “differenttypes of utterance,” of poems “ambitious and experimental” in a volume that is“tough, tender and honest throughout.”
As Passion Maps suggests, these are poems of experiences that have mapped, asmuch as experiences that have become maps; there are the inevitable firstcartographies of family: a father “stoic/ in brutal combat,” a mother who “wouldhave preferred to sing her words” that expand into the broader mappings of “bygonelives,/” and “the lyric ruin of cities,” an America of “New World opportunity” andan old world of “whole towns/now erased by the grass.” In Jon Tribble’s Crab OrchardReview of Wild Greens he describes the “the bitter and the sweet” in the poems that“test our palates” and “remind us that the bread and meat and fruits and greens oflife come with many flavors and at a cost that is as dear as it is worthwhile.” Thesame could be said of Kalfopoulou’s second collection though here we have thevoice of a poet who has broadened her style to include more of the world.
Adrianne Kalfopoulou’s rich second collection maps “an inner country” where historyis intimate knowledge. Whether set in Greece, America, Turkey or Vietnam, thesepoems never lose sight of “the storm / beyond language” that is a living struggle,nor do they forget what it is to “swallow joy like champagne.” Poetic range for thispoet is not just formal, but also emotional, from intense lyrics like “The Street ofthe Aphrodite Hotel” to narratives in “Brides” and “Balkan Voices.” The book teemswith characters, and in a poem like “Neos Kosmos” whole currents of modern historyflow through the filter of one Athenian neighborhood. Kalfopoulou writes as mother,daughter, lover and intellectual—international in her experience, fully-engaged,observant and, yes, passionate.
—David Mason
It is a difficult thing to write simply and eloquently with quiet and intense passion inways that are unflinchingly personal but also fold the reader into the depths of historyand myth. This is partly what Adrianne Kalfopoulou’s poems do for me. They arealso celebrations reminding me how words can perform acts of affirmation and joyno matter what griefs or complex experiences they contain. These poems attain thebeauty of ritual.
—T. Alan Broughton
Red Hen Press is a small nonprofit literary press founded in 1994.Please support small independent presses who keep cutting edge literature alive.
Red Hen P ress • P.O . Box 3537 • Granada Hills, CA 91394 • www.redhen.org
Book DescriptionPassion Maps is a lyrical cartography of historical and biographical experiences, of the poet’s lived andimagined mappings. The poems in this collection chart a world itinerary of stopping places, or “stassis”– a transliterated Greek word for a stop or a pause – that journey the reader from locations ofchildhood memory to pauses of lost love, and lost life, through landscapes as disparate as Vietnam,Greece, New Jersey and the Balkans. As poet and critic Joseph Powell described Kalfopoulou’s firstcollection, Wild Greens, “the best of these poems ‘make beauty ache,’ a phrase used by Frost todescribe Yeats’ poetry”; of this new collection Powell notes a range of “different types of utterance,”of poems “ambitious and experimental” in a volume that is “tough, tender and honest throughout.”
Praise for Passion MapsAdrianne Kalfopoulou’s rich second collection maps “an inner country” where history is intimateknowledge. Whether set in Greece, America, Turkey or Vietnam, these poems never lose sight of“the storm / beyond language” that is a living struggle, nor do they forget what it is to “swallow joylike champagne.” Poetic range for this poet is not just formal, but also emotional, from intenselyrics like “The Street of the Aphrodite Hotel” to narratives in “Brides” and “Balkan Voices.” Thebook teems with characters, and in a poem like “Neos Kosmos” whole currents of modern historyflow through the filter of one Athenian neighborhood. Kalfopoulou writes as mother, daughter,lover and intellectual—international in her experience, fully-engaged, observant and, yes, passionate.
—David Mason
It is a difficult thing to write simply and eloquently with quiet and intense passion in ways that areunflinchingly personal but also fold the reader into the depths of history and myth. This is partlywhat Adrianne Kalfopoulou’s poems do for me. They are also celebrations reminding me howwords can perform acts of affirmation and joy no matter what griefs or complex experiences theycontain. These poems attain the beauty of ritual.
—T. Alan Broughton
Red Hen Press P.O. BOX 3537 • GRANADA HILLS, CA 91394 • (818) 831-0649 • fax: (818) 831-6659
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Adrianne Kalfopoulou earned degrees from Brown University, New York University and a doctoratein American Studies from Aristotle University in Thessalonki, Greece. Her dissertation The UntidyHouse, a Discussion of the Ideology of the American Dream in the Culture’s Female Discourses was publishedby Edwin Mellen Press. Her first collection Wild Greens was a finalist for the Red Hen Press first bookaward. She is the author of an award winning chapbook Fig, and a memoir, Broken Greek, a finalist forthe 2007 Best Books Award from USA Book News. Her poems have been featured on ValparaisoPoetry Review and Verse Daily, and earned a 2006 pushcart prize nomination and the 2003 poetryaward from Room of One’s Own. A second poetry chapbook, Cumulus is forthcoming from FinishingLine Press.
Adrianne has been part of a group of faculty and administrators who helped pioneer an Americanundergraduate program at the fledgling Hellenic American University in Athens; at HAU she teachesliterature and general education courses that encourage interdisciplinary thinking and creativity. Livingso close to the Aegean is something she loves, but hates not being able to swim in it more often.Unlike what the ads promise the azure skies and sapphire waters aren’t part of daily Greek life forAthenians, though she, like her fellow-Athenians, enjoy them when she can. Adrianne has also taughtin the University of Edinburgh’s international summer schools program (SUISS) where she was acreative writing tutor for three years, discovered the Scottish white nights and wonderful groups ofinternational students. She is currently at work on a book of creative non-fiction essays, and amonograph of 19th century American influences on Sylvia Plath’s work. Recent work appears in HotelAmerika and Prairie Schooner.
Author Biography
Red Hen Press P.O. BOX 3537 • GRANADA HILLS, CA 91394 • (818) 831-0649 • fax: (818) 831-6659
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Additional InformationFor additional information visit Adrianne Kalfopoulou at: www.adriannekalfopoulou.com.
EventsFor a listing of author appearances, visit Red Hen Press at: www.redhen.org.
Review Copies, Author Interviews & ExcerptsTo request a review copy, schedule an author interview, or obtain more information regardingpublishing an excerpt contact Jin Kim, Publicity Assistant, at [email protected].
Examination CopiesPlease refer requests for examination copies to the Chicago Distribution Center. They can becontacted at 800-621-2736.
Red Hen Press P.O. BOX 3537 • GRANADA HILLS, CA 91394 • (818) 831-0649 • fax: (818) 831-6659
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Passion Mapsby
Adrianne Kalfopoulou
Passion Maps is a lyrical cartography of historical and biographical experiences, of the poet’s lived andimagined mappings. The poems in this collection chart a world itinerary of stopping places, or “stassis”– a transliterated Greek word for a stop or a pause – that journey the reader from locations ofchildhood memory to pauses of lost love, and lost life, through landscapes as disparate as Vietnam,Greece, New Jersey and the Balkans. As poet and critic Joseph Powell described Kalfopoulou’s firstcollection, Wild Greens, “the best of these poems ‘make beauty ache,’ a phrase used by Frost todescribe Yeats’ poetry”; of this new collection Powell notes a range of “different types of utterance,”of poems “ambitious and experimental” in a volume that is “tough, tender and honest throughout.”
Passion MapsPoetry by Adrianne KalfopoulouISBN: 978-1-59709-158-96 x 9; Tradepaper104 pagesPRICE: US $17.95
Adrianne Kalfopoulou is the author of Wild Greens, a poetry collection from Red Hen Press, and aprose memoir, Broken Greek. She has published two chapbooks, Fig and Cumulus and various articlesand essays. Passion Maps is her second collection of poems. She taught at the University of Edinburgh’sinternational summer school program for several years and in various writing workshops in Greece.Currently she is an Assistant Professor at Hellenic American University in Athens where she developedthe general education program and teaches literature.
Praise for Passion Maps
“It is a difficult thing to write simply and eloquently with quiet and intense passion in ways that areunflinchingly personal but also fold the reader into the depths of history and myth. This is partlywhat Adrianne Kalfopoulou’s poems do for me. They are also celebrations reminding me how wordscan perform acts of affirmation and joy no matter what griefs or complex experiences they contain.These poems attain the beauty of ritual.”
—T. Alan Broughton
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Red Hen Press P.O. BOX 3537 • GRANADA HILLS, CA 91394 • (818) 831-0649 • fax: (818) 831-6659
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